Thursday, 9 November 2017

Ryan Wigglesworth, principal guest
conductor of the Hallé, gave a programme for this week’s ‘Opus One’ concert
that would have seemed outrageously heavyweight for that audience a few years
ago. But it wasn’t, and the reception for Mahler’s fourth symphony showed just
how much the traditionally ‘popular’ Opus One repertoire has come closer to
that of the reputedly ‘heavy’ Thursday series.

He began with Mozart, and a concert aria to
boot, which certainly won friends and influenced people. Joanne Lunn, the soprano
who stepped in to replace Elizabeth Watts, was a charming performer of Ch’io mi scordi di te? – a classical
stylist whose voice quality betrays hidden depths and holds manifest richness. In
partnership with Ryan Wigglesworth (who directed and played the piano part
Mozart originally wrote for himself), the piece was poised and elegantly
phrased, with a controlled burst of passion for ‘Stelle barbare …’ and a degree
of agitation perceptible in the final stanza (and some fiercer wind playing in
its reprise).

More Mozart followed, keeping the chamber
orchestra sized team of strings for his Symphony
no. 34 (K338). It’s intellectual weight is in the first movement, which was
taken at a sober pace for vivace,
allowing for crisply articulated lines, some moments of foreboding and a grand
gesture to end with. Perhaps Ryan Wigglesworth was seeking impact and
profundity in the slow movement, too, among its graceful melodic shapes and
occasional harmonic surprises, but I’m not sure there was much there to be
found. The finale – an overture in all but name, with an ear-worm of a main
theme – produced even and efficiently busy string playing from the Hallé, led
by Paul Barritt.

Then it was time for Mahler. Symphony no. 4 is considered one of his
most ‘approachable’, on account of its gentle melodies and cheerful themes
associated with the Des Knaben Wunderhorn song that concludes the work, and in
this reading it began all grace and gradual transition, with skillfully
balanced textures and contrasts of woodwind tone the most telling aspect of the
playing.

But of course there is something more
macabre to come, and it made itself more apparent in the playfulness of the
second movement, the symphony’s scherzo. Ryan Wigglesworth followed all the
score’s directions to the letter, with never any additional stroke of drama.
There was warmth from the horns in chorus and silvery beauty from the strings
in the long slow movement, with peace and goodwill its dominant aspect, even in
the ‘surprise’ gesture at its close, which was neat if not exactly startling.

Joanne Lunn returned to sing the solo of
‘Das himmlische Leben’ in the final movement, with beautiful pianissimo and a
lovely portamento for St Ursula. The movement’s last defiance was an emphatic blast
at the repetition of the opening theme of the whole work – a nice touch.

Monday, 6 November 2017

The BBC Philharmonic plunged into music of
the 21st century on Saturday at the Bridgewater HalHall, with Simone Young conducting
and Jonathan Biss their piano soloist.

(It was balanced with Beethoven and Elgar,
but more of that later).

Brett Dean’s Testament, in its 2008 revision for orchestra, was a stimulating
beginning. It’s inspired by Beethoven’s ‘Heiligenstadt Testament’ – the unsent
letter in which he grappled with thoughts of suicide (‘Testament’ in this
context = a will, to be read after one’s death) but resolved to pursue his
calling as a musician in spite of encroaching deafness.

The composer’s description itemizes a
three-stage process of ‘leave-taking, an acceptance and a fresh start’, and
that’s certainly mirrored in the music. It was played with care and
considerable precision, Yuri Torchinsky in the leader’s chair of the Phil.

The other novelty – Sally Beamish’s Piano Concerto no. 3, ‘City Stanzas’ – was
premiered in January this year and written (at Jonathan Biss’s request) explicitly
to ‘partner’ Beethoven’s first piano concerto. Beamish says it was affected by
the political situation in the UK and USA as she composed it last year, and
that it’s ‘darkly sardonic’ in all three movements. I have the impression that
its concept changed as she worked on it, and that the intention to write
something about urban landscapes took on grimmer aspects without completely extinguishing
the more light-hearted aspects which she may have had in mind originally.

Its structure follows that of the Beethoven
concerto, with the marching rhythms of its opening turned quite militaristic
and grotesque, and its ‘second subject’ making a strong and near-lyrical impression,
though with heavy tread. The slow movement’s bleak sound, with gloomy chords
from the piano and lugubrious woodwind solos, is a real lament for something
lost. The finale catches Beethoven’s lightness and wit – a touch of dance band music
included – but ends with a good deal more anger than he put in: a testament to
2016’s politics, I guess.

Jonathan Biss played the solo part with
love and expertise, and the BBC Philharmonic backed him all the way. In the actual
Beethoven Piano concerto no. 1 (which
preceded the Beamish concerto), we had a stylistic mix, with the orchestra’s
beginning in attempts to inject lightness and classical articulation to their
sound but reverting more to their tried-and-tested tutti quality as time went
on. Jonathan Biss was a model of classical decorum, but added telling passion
and drama in the course of the first movement – almost as if a new music was
being invented before our very eyes. The slow movement had a poised solo with
muscular accompaniment.

The concert ended with Elgar’s ‘Enigma’ Variations. The Phil, of
course, can play this with their eyes shut, and the accent in some places was
again on muscularity, with a big finish that brought an enthusiastic reception.
It was in the quieter and gentler movements, however, that their best qualities
came out.